Time to engage in some "contrary thinking" on The Shrugging Out Podcast, mainly just to make sure that we're still thinking!In the early days of "modern survivalism", prepping for the crash was contrary thinking--few people indeed believed that bad times were coming, and that we should be preparing to survive them.
Nowadays survivalist thinking has become much more prevalent, if not exactly mainstream, marked by the numbers of people, blogs, and even TV shows talking about oncoming hard times and prepping.
In this show, I quote heavily from a very interesting article by Jesse Columbo called "We May be on the Verge of the Next Major Bubble Boom" in which he identifies eight possible economic bubbles that could produce an economic boom before the collapse we are all expecting. His acronym is "CCC ACHES" which stands for:
- China
- Commodities
- Canada
- Australia
- College in the US
- Health care in the US
- Emerging markets, and
- Social media & tech bubble 2.0.
Nobody can predict when the Big Collapse will come, or what will happen between now and the collapse. Columbo's thinking is certainly contrary to the prevailing gloom shared by most of us. He's not suggesting the crash won't come, he's suggesting we may not be finished with short-term "bubble booms" before the Big Collapse finally arrives.
In other words, we can't assume that it is all downhill from here.
History suggests we should respect and occasionally engage in contrary thinking to avoid tunnel vision and stay flexible in the face of uncertainty.
The lesson? Have a plan, and work your plan. But have a Plan B, and maybe a Plan C. And keep paying attention, and thinking about what is actually happening, and what else COULD happen.
- - - - - -Pete Ferron
